Jingle All the Way
by LM
Summary: A very strange little Christmas 'fic. Hey, sometimes weird works. ^_^


# Jingle All the Way

by Lady Moondancer

* * *

Bathed in a light that glittered till it hurt the eyes, the missile hurled towards the little pony, gathering speed as it whistled with deadly accuracy towards the pair of yellow ears nestled beneath the nest of silky red hair. The ponies gathered nearby, spotting the approaching blur, quickly scattered, but the target simply gaped, transfixed . . . 

The snowball hit with a spray of white powder, and Diamond Dreams tripped into a sloping snowbank as she blindly staggered, trying to shake the snow from her eyes. "OHHHHH!" she exclaimed, emerging with several inches of snow garnishing her head.

"What's red and yellow and white all over?" crowed Skydancer, kicking up his hooves and casually splattering Parasol's light pink coat with a spray of snow. She gleefully pushed him into a snowbank in retaliation.

"Look at meeeee!" squealed Baby Lickety-Split as she leapt onto the glittering ice layering the pond. 

"Watch out!" Baby Moondancer protested, protectively standing in front of the snowpony she'd made. 

The snow-picnic was a complete success, Snowflake noted with satisfaction as she watched Baby Half-Note carefully inspecting the tiny hoofprints she'd left in the snow. Snowflake's smile widened. "What do you think of the snow, Baby Half-Note?" the bright pink earthling asked. 

The baby gazed back at her solemnly as stray snowflakes gathered on her tiny muzzle. "It's cold," she said at last. "But it's fun!" And she began bounding through the white drifts to reach the other baby ponies. 

"Aww, what a cutie!" Powder commented around the wicker picnic basket clamped in her teeth. A snug white-and-red checkered cloth protected its contents. "Well, do you think we should start the picnicking now, Snowflake?" 

Snowflake nodded. "Yes, I think the babies have worn off their extra energy. And the adults," she added, watching Diamond Dreams pounding after Skydancer as he glided over the drifted snowbanks. "Picnic time?" Skydancer asked as he soared past with his hooves neatly tucked underneath him. 

"I'm warning you, Sky, I have a snowball with your name on it!" Diamond Dreams shrieked, rushing past Powder and Snowflake in a flurry. 

"Err . . . yes," answered Snowflake as Skydancer and his pursuer circled back again. 

"Great!" exclaimed the pegasus, spreading out his wings and abruptly halting in midair. Diamond Dreams tried to imitate him, but ended up sliding several feet until a considerate snowdrift halted her progress. Powder giggled as the earthling scrambled and kicked her way to freedom. 

"Food?" Diamond Dreams pricked up her snow-frosted ears. "What's in the basket?" 

"Hot cocoa," Powder recited, setting the basket at her hooves. "Cranberry sauce, cookies, pumpkin pie, cider, pasties, crystallized clover and violets, sweetbread, alfalfa pudding--" 

"Oooo!" the nearby ponies chorused. 

"--and then we're going to make our own ice cream from fresh snow!" Powder finished, triumphantly gazing around the eager faces. As if by magic, every single pony had gravitated towards the purple unicorn the minute she had begun her litany. 

"Right," said Snowflake. "So everyone split up into groups of five or six to share a basket! There's plenty for everyone!" 

The ponies cheered and stamped their hooves energetically, though the snow muffled the sound. 

"Who will we sit with, Mommy?" Baby Half-Note whispered to a larger version of herself. "Can I carry the basket?" she added before her mother could answer. 

"Sure, honey." Half-Note's lavender muzzle crinkled into a smile. She stifled her laughter as her daughter gamely pulled at the handle of the overloaded hamper. 

"Looks like you need a helping hoof!" grinned Cloudfurl as he trotted up. He took the handle in his mouth, but carefully carried it low enough so that Baby Half-Note could still "help." 

"Oh, there you are!" Half-Note nuzzled her mate, playfully grabbing his ear. 

"Mommy, the basket goes all jiggly when you bite Daddy," complained the baby pony, clinging to the hamper as it nearly pulled her off her hooves. 

"Sorry, sprite." Cloudfurl lowered his head and managed to shake his ear loose. "Now who should we eat with?" 

"Over here!" Skydancer called as the pony family wandered into the snowy woods surrounding the broad field. Skydancer grinned as they trotted over. Parasol, Cotton Candy, and Butterscotch also joined the yellow stallion, lifting their hooves high above the sparkling crust of snow. 

"The woods look just like they've been coated with sugar," sighed Butterscotch happily. 

"Speaking of sugar . . . are there really crystallized violets?" Cotton Candy wiggled with anticipation. 

"That and--" Cloudfurl whipped the gingham cloth off the basket, "--so much more!" 

A chorus of oohs and ahhs went up from the ponies; the cookies, sweetbread, pasties, and pie were wrapped neatly in handkerchiefs and arranged in a tight circle around a beautiful alfalfa pudding topped with a sprig of holly. One porcelain bowl (covered) held cranberry sauce and another held the clover and violets, preserved in sugar. And flasks of cocoa and cider crowded each other in the very bottom of the basket. The ponies let happy sighs escape. 

"I feel full just looking at this!" Butterscotch exclaimed. 

"More for the rest of us, then," Parasol commented, helping herself to a pony-shaped cookie. The other ponies followed suite, and soon the only the sound of heavy munching filled the air, interspersed with the occasional "Please pass the pudding." 

"That was delicious," Half-Note said at last, stretching luxuriously. Baby Half-Note nibbled the edge of a cookie and Skydancer still attacked the leftovers with vigor, but most of the other ponies were also leaning back and patting their stomachs contentedly. . 

"Look at the snow," Half-Note murmured, lying on her back. "It just goes on and on . . . falling and falling forever down . . . down . . . doooow--" Her head nodded as her eyes slipped shut. 

"Lazyhead!" joked Cloudfurl, poking his mate with a hoof, but Half-Note didn't open her eyes. 

"Parasol's asleep too," Baby Half-Note giggled. 

A glance confirmed that the pink earthling had indeed nodded off. With a casual flap of his wings, Skydancer hovered a foot or two off the ground, surveying his fellow Rainbow pony and polishing off the last piece of sweetbread. "Strange," he commented, looking around for more edibles. "Parasol isn't the type of pony to--" He never finished the sentence; his eyes closed and he somersaulted onto the ground with a soft thud. 

The other ponies stared in stunned silence. 

"Skydancer?" gasped Cotton Candy. 

"He's asleep!" Cloudfurl gasped in disbelief. 

Butterscotch shivered. "P-pegasi aren't supposed to fall asleep in the air," she whispered, wildly eyeing the three sleeping ponies. "It . . . it must be magic!" 

"What about mommy?" wailed Baby Half-Note, anxiously butting her head against her mother's lavender shoulders. But Half-Note simply gave a little half-sigh and continued to dream. 

"Skydancer! Parasol! Wake up!" shouted Cotton Candy, grabbing a mouthful of Parasol's mane and shaking her head wildly. The Rainbow pony didn't stir. Baby Half-Note began to cry. 

"We've got to find Majesty," Butterscotch gasped. "A-and Twilight--maybe she can help!"

"What about Milky Way?" asked Cloudfurl, his mind racing. 

"Will they make mommy wake up?" sobbed Baby Half-Note. 

"Yes, yes, they will, sweetie," Butterscotch sincerely hoped she was telling the truth. "Now you and your daddy find Queen Majesty while Cotton Candy and I track down Milky Way and Twilight." 

Cloudfurl's hooves tore the snow as he dashed frantically through the thinning trees, followed by his little foal. 

Majesty already stood in the middle of the stretching field, trying to calm down a frantic Shady and a hysterical Sugarberry. As the stallion thundered towards them, he began to catch fragments of the conversation. 

". . . awful, just awful, and if I live a million years I'll never forget--" shrieked Sugarberry. 

Shady was weeping uncontrollably. "--and then they just fell asleep!" she wailed. 

"You too??" gasped Cloudfurl. The mares turned towards him. "Half-Note and *gasp gasp* Parasol and then Skydancer--all asleep!" he managed to say. 

"I'm sure there's a perfectly simple explanation," Majesty smiled comfortingly at him. "After eating a heavy meal--" 

"Nooo," sobbed Baby Half-Note. "It's a _bad_ sleep! Skydancer fell out of the air!" 

Majesty raised an eyebrow and looked at Cloudfurl. "It's true," he said as a sick feeling gnawed at his stomach--or maybe it was the cider. "He was just hovering there, you know how he does, and his eyes closed and he just fell! And then we tried to wake up the others, and--" 

"You see? It's SPREADING!" screamed Sugarberry. "It's a plague come to--" 

Cloudfurl resisted the urge to jam her into a snowbank, head first. 

"Sugarberry and Shady said the same thing happened in their little group," said Majesty, raising her voice to be heard above Sugarberry's hysterics. (Shady still wept, but quietly.) "Thundercloud, Whizzer, Heart Throb, and a few others fell into an unbreakable sleep . . . where were you eating? Lead me there." 

Cloudfurl nodded and began galloping towards the woods. It'll be all right now, he told himself. Majesty will know what to do, and it'll be all right. She'll just stomp her hoof or blink twice or something and they'll wake up . . . What if they don't wake up? Don't be stupid, of course they will! And if they don't--why, then we'll just take them inside and get the princesses to come over. Or we could go to them. They control all the magic of Ponyland, so they can certainly fix this. We'll just take them over to Crystal Castle . . . 

But they weren't taking Skydancer, Parasol, or Half-Note anywhere, they discovered. For in the woods they only found a empty picnic basket and hoof-churned snow . . . and the crisp snow angel outline of a pegasus fallen from the sky. 

* * *

Comet gazed around the room for the fiftieth time. Despite Skydancer's assurances that a visit to Dream Valley was "never a bore", she had not expected to fall asleep and wake up in a strange room. She was fairly sure that the mahogany walls did not belong to Dream Castle. Besides the fact that Dream Castle had been built of pink marble, she didn't think that the DreamVallians would leave them all alone in a locked library decorated by someone with a mania for red and green. Especially not with harnesses. She glanced over her shoulder once more to examine the red straps crisscrossing her back and passing under her belly. Large silver jingle bells had been sewn onto the harness, and two sturdy rings had also been attached, one on each shoulder. The bells jingled merrily whenever Comet moved. Striking to behold but annoying to wear, Comet concluded. The other ponies had been decked out similarly, and they jangled faintly whenever they stirred in their sleep. 

As Comet wandered over to have another look at the strange metal contraption on the door (no door tassels--most odd!), Parasol leapt to her hooves without preamble. Comet raised her orange eyebrows and mentally assigned a 8.5 for style. Just like seeing someone pulling a marionette to its feet, she thought. One minute it's collapsed in a heap of joints and elbows and the next it's-- 

"Okay, where are we?" Parasol stared at the sturdy oak bookcases with suspicion. "Where are we and what--" she plucked at her harness, causing the bells to dance, "--is THIS?" 

"Sorry, can't help you with those questions," smiled Comet, happy to have someone to talk to at last. Even if it _was_ Parasol. "So this isn't Dream Valley, I take it?" 

Parasol snorted. "Not on your life. What's outside those windows, Comet?" 

Comet glanced towards the little square windows lining one wall. "Snow, snow, and more snow," she answered. 

"Too bad they aren't bigger . . . we could escape out of them if we could get our shoulder's through. Of course, I could teleport out, but then all of you would still be stuck here. But I might find a way to open the door . . . " Parasol looked thoughtful. She watched the snowflakes tumbling down from the vast white clouds nestled against the sky. 

"Maybe you should wait until the others are awake," Comet suggested, and the pink earthling nodded.

"Hey, where are we?" called a confused voice. Thundercloud had a surprised look that Rip Van Winkle might have worn, had he been a pony.

"We don't know." Parasol's tone suggested he was stupid for asking. 

As he frowned at the endless snowfields through the window, his brother Lightning blinked his eyes open. "Whoa! Where in shades are we?" he gaped. Parasol closed her eyes, sensing that she would soon become very, very tired of that question.

"Who's here besides us?" asked Thundercloud, expertly ignoring his brother. 

"Skydancer, Whizzer, Half-Note, and Heart Throb," provided Comet, flipping her dark red forelock out of her eyes. 

"Did you call?" asked Skydancer, flitting around the little group once or twice before folding his wings back for a landing. "Hmm, harnesses . . . I don't think I care for _that."_ With a few skillful wiggles and contortions he left the jingling straps in a discarded heap on the floor. 

"How did you _do_ that?" Lightning said in a hushed tone, impressed. 

"One of Skydancer's abilities is unnatural agility," explained Parasol. "Rainbow magic." 

"Wherearewe? Whatarewedoinghere?" someone began gabbling. 

"I think Whizzer's awake," Skydancer observed. The other ponies glanced away from the window in time to see Whizzer careening around the room with both her mouth and her wings going full speed. Even as they watched, Heart Throb yawned daintily and stood up and Half-Note blinked her eyes sleepily. 

"We don't know," Parasol snapped as they opened their mouths. "So don't ask." 

"We've been _kidnapped!"_ Heart Throb wailed in dismay, dramatically sweeping a hoof across her forehead. "Oh, whatever shall we _do?"_

"Rainbow preserve us," muttered Parasol. "It's like being marooned with someone from Overactors Anonymous." 

"I remember falling asleep . . ." Half-Note said slowly. "Is that what happened to everyone else?" Nods and murmurs of agreement greeted her question. 

"And now we wake up in a strange place," Comet said. "So it seems Heart Throb's right; we probably _have_ been kidnapped." 

"Yeah, but look on the bright side!" Thundercloud said cheerfully. The others stared at him. 

_"What_ 'bright side'?" Parasol demanded.

"Uhhh . . . well, at least we didn't wake up dead . . ." 

Only the sound of Parasol thumping her head against the end of a bookcase broke the silence. 

"Leave the thinking to me from now on, hmm, bro?" Lightning rolled his eyes. "Okay, so we've been kidnapped. But why?" 

"And what happened to the other ponies at the picnic?" Comet added. "Did they fall asleep too?" 

"Iftheywere," Whizzer said, "thenwherearethey?" 

The others paused to silently translate Whizzer's words and explain them to the Dreamquayian, Comet. Half-Note thought of her mate and daughter and began to pace back and forth in front of the rows of dusty books. 

"Maybe they're being held somewhere else. Maybe they're in a _dank_ and _slimy_ dungeon--" Heart Throb tried to huddle against Skydancer for protection, but he simply inched away from her. 

Parasol snorted. Lightning rolled his eyes. And Comet grinned. 

"Maybe they only took us," suggested Thundercloud. 

"But why us?" wondered Half-Note. The others shrugged. 

"What're you doing, Sky?" Lightning asked. The pegasus lounged comfortably on the top of a bookcase, casually flipping through some ancient, crumbling volumes. "These might be able to tell us more about who lives here," Skydancer answered, pushing a few books off the shelf without looking up from his reading. (One of them hit Thundercloud squarely on the head, much to Parasol's delight.) 

"'Jingle All the Way: My Life among the Reindeer,'" Comet read. 

Half-Note examined a thin volume bound with blue cloth. "'Ho Ho Ho, or "How to Shake like a Bowl Full of Jelly"' . . . " 

"'Elves and Labor Rights' . . ." 

"'Chimneys and You: The Comprehensive Guide to Weight Loss' . . ." 

"'101 Ways to Cook Venison' . . ." 

"This all seems very familiar," Thundercloud said at last, furrowing his brow. 

"Isn't this connected with one of those human holidays?" Half-Note added. "But it still doesn't explain why someone would kidnap us!" 

"If I teleport out of the library, I can try to--" Parasol began. 

"Hush!" Skydancer said softly, gliding to the floor. "Someone's coming." The ponies listened intently to the padded footfalls making the floorboards creak on the other side of the great oak door.

"They might not know we can talk," Lightning hissed. "Let's keep it that way!" The other seven ponies nodded in accord . . . then gazed in awed fascination as the door creaked open. 

Their captors--these two, at least--stood only a few feet off the ground--tiny humanoids with large pointed ears wearing red and green jerkins and pantaloons. A fringe of scruffy, uncertain hair escaped from under the rim of green, pointed caps topped with silver jingle bells. Their shoes shared the same hue and had strange toes which curled at the end. (Parasol felt a sudden desire to stomp on the spiraling toe of the shoes, but restrained herself.) 

"Ahh, here they are!" one of the little figures said, clapping his hands together. A shock of bright yellow hair doused his head. 

"What in chimneys was Trock thinking? This is never going to work," grumbled the slightly larger of the two humanoids. "Hey Dringle, that one got out of his harness!" He pointed a long, skinny finger at Skydancer. 

"No problem," Dringle reassured, picking the crumpled harness off the sleek floor. He began sidling towards Skydancer. "C'mere, boy . . . I've got a nice treat for you!" Of course, Skydancer effortlessly sidestepped all attempts at capture. 

"It's no good, Snift," the hapless Dringle panted at last. "He's too _quick!"_

"Defeated by a horse--pathetic," sneered the redhead. (The ponies silently bristled at this description.) "Well, we'll come back with some sugar. I'll make a note of it . . . what that one called, now?" 

Dringle pulled a small, coffee-stained list from his pocket. "Yellow pegasus . . . that's Dancer." Skydancer raised an eyebrow. The rest of the ponies stared in shock. 

"Dancer," repeated Snift. "Okay. Make a note of it for Trock. Now come on, we've got to find him and--" Their voices faded as they entered the hall. 

"How did they know your name?" Thundercloud gasped when the footsteps of the little creatures had declined. 

"I don't know," Skydancer said thoughtfully, "but I'd love to find out!" 

"They didn't _quite_ get it right," pointed out Half-Note. "Pretty close, though." 

"What _were_ those things, anyway?" Comet wondered. 

"Little creatures obsessed with red and green, apparently," Parasol offered drily. "Good thing they didn't see Gusty at the picnic. They probably would've had their best taxidermist--" 

"The looked a little like elves to me," Half-Note said. 

_"Elves?_Whydoyousaythat,HalfNote?"asked Whizzer. The other ponies just raised their eyebrows doubtfully except Heart Throb, who couldn't care less what the little bipeds were.

Half-Note blushed. "Well, I don't know . . . their ears are the same. They just look like really short elves to me."

"Not to change the subject or anything, but . . . I think we should escape," Lightning interrupted. "They obviously intend to keep us prisoners!" 

"Escape? In _these?"_ Parasol grabbed a mouthful of Lightning's harness and jerked her head. The bells jingled merrily . . . and loudly. 

"We'vegottagetthemofflikeSkydancerdid,yeahyeah!" Whizzer babbled. 

"But not all of us are contortionists," Heart Throb said. 

"Maybe we can chew them off," suggested Thundercloud. "Blech! What are these made of, anyway?"

"Ah . . . best that you don't know," Skydancer said. The others stared at him. 

"What do you mean?" Lightning said at last. 

Skydancer flitted around the room, absentmindedly doing a barrel roll. "Well . . . as far as I can tell, they're made of dyed leather." 

Parasol frowned, uncomprehending. The others looked confused. "What's leather?" Thundercloud asked. 

"Well, it's . . . hide." Then, seeing more baffled looks: "They're made of animal skin."

An audible gasp swept around the room, and several ponies tried to shrink away from the merry red straps holding them. 

"Y-you mean we're wearing the skin of _dead animals?"_ Half-Note said faintly. "Who would do such a thing?" 

Skydancer decided not to explain what venison was. 

"Get it off, get it off!" screamed Heart Throb, trying futilely to rub the harness off on the wall. 

"I can undo the buckles," Skydancer offered. His friends crowded around him anxiously, and soon seven more harnesses lay abandoned. 

"Now--escape!" proclaimed Parasol. "I'll get on the other side of that door and see what I can do." She blinked twice and melted out of existence. 

* * *

Parasol examined the opposite side of the door with care. She had assumed that the oddly curved bronze strip with the metal tab nestled by the door had been a sort of lock, and she frowned thoughtfully upon finding the same device on the "far side" of the portal.

"No door tassels anywhere," she muttered, swishing her rainbow tail. She leaned heavily against the door, battering it once or twice with her shoulder. "Solid as a rock," she sighed. _"Now_ what?" The earthling glanced up the wide hall which led towards the library; like everything else she'd seen, it was garnished with red and green decorations, as well as boughs of fir and holly and shiny glass balls. Several corridors branched off from the hall, which stretched nearly as far as she could see.

"Hmm, what's this?" Parasol pawed at an insignificant fragment of white marring the perfect(ly awful) pattern of red and green plaid carpeting. A piece of paper, tightly folded, she deduced, carefully picking it up in her teeth. She blinked twice and materialized in the library once more, causing her friends to jump in surprise.

"Can you open this?" she asked Skydancer, tossing the paper at his hooves. She was glad the elves--or whatever they were--hadn't put carpeting in the library. The plaid floor of the hall had given her a headache.

"No problem," the pegasus, answered, flopping onto his belly and prying at the folded sheet with his elegant yellow hooves. "Isn't this the one that little creature was carrying? Dringle was his name, I think. Ahh, here we go . . . " The paper unfurled into a crisscross of furrowed lines. "Looks like some kind of list," said Skydancer. The other ponies jostled around him to get a look.

"It'salist,allright!" Whizzer nodded energetically.

"It's a list of _us!"_ Comet said. "Look, it has descriptions . . . 'lavender peg., pink', 'orange Clyde., yellow' . . ."

"And 'orange, red'," added Half-Note. "You're right, Comet. It's our body colors followed by our hair colors. But what are those scribbles in the margin?"

"Interesting," Skydancer said. "It's the handwriting of someone else--someone sloppier. It's a list of names, apparently. And by 'yellow peg., multi' it says," he raised an eyebrow, "it says Dancer." 

"That's what the elf called you," Half-Note said thoughtfully.

Skydancer nodded. "By your description, H-F, it says Prancer, by Whizzer's it says Dasher . . ." 

"What does it say by _my_ name?" asked Heart Throb.

"Hmm . . . Cupid."

_ "Cupid?"_ squawked Heart Throb. "Not Beauty or Aphrodite or . . . ?"

"What about me?" Thundercloud wondered, wide-eyed.

"Probably Moron," Lightning mumbled.

"Donder. And your brother is Blitzen. They actually got Comet's name right . . ."

"Then I would be listed as . . . ?" Parasol left the question hanging.

Skydancer's grin widened. "Oh, you're _ Vixen!"_

Parasol's eyes narrowed.

* * *

"You're _sure_ he's not here?" Snift repeated for the eighth time.

"I told you," Dringle said miserably, trotting down the mistletoe ladened hall a little faster. "Binklen said Trock took five years of vacation leave right after he brought the little horses back. No wonder we couldn't find him earlier," he added with a sigh.

"Well, of all the irresponsible--did the unreliable sod of an elf tell Binklen where he was going??"

"Hawaii, Binklen thought. He wasn't sure, though."

Snift groaned. "But what do we _feed_ them? You don't think Reindeer Chow would work, do you?" 

"We-ell, I don't know . . ."

"Of course you don't know!" raved Snift. "Only Trock knows! What are we going to tell _Santa?"_

Dringle considered. "Well . . . we _could_ tell him that we found the horses in the library and don't know much about them."

"Oh, great idea! _That_ sounds really good. 'I'm sorry, Santa sir, but someone left some pastel horses in the library and we don't even know what the holly they are!' Yeah, that'll really impress him! He'll think we can't see beyond the ends of our toes, letting Trock toss domestic animals around the place like that!"

Dringle began wringing his hands anxiously. "But Snift, he can't blame us for something that Trock, can he?" 

_ "Of course_ he can blame us, you numbskull! We're in charge of this section! Oh, how could Trock _do_ this!" Snift moaned as he pushed open the library door. 

Neither elf noticed the yellow pegasus shove a white piece of paper, rather crumpled, under his hoof. Indeed, the light pink mare with the rainbow hair monopolized their attention when she marched over and kicked Snift in the shin after stomping hard on Dringle's foot.

"OWWWWW!!!" shrieked Snift, falling backwards.

"AHHHHHH!!!" wailed Dringle, hopping on one foot. 

The mare cocked her head to one side and watched the antics of the elves with extreme interest. And if Dringle hadn't known better, he would've sworn she worn a slight smile of vindication. 

* * *

Santa Claus looked at the mountain of papers trying to tumble off his desk and he sighed. Paperwork, he thought sadly. That was all he ever seemed to do nowadays. Paperwork, paperwork, and more paperwork. Oh, every year he harnessed up the reindeer and visited children all around the world, but all that mindnumbing number crunching was taking its toll, he knew. It was hard to be jolly when you'd just finished filling out a pile of tax forms. You could say "Ho ho ho" all you wanted, but your heart just wouldn't be in it. 

Secretly he wished he could return to the days when children were so few and far between that he could make all the toys himself. Or if only he could get a secretary--he glanced at the documents drowning his desk and decided to make that _six_ secretaries--who could do all the boring work for him while he painted rocking horses and tested toy trains! But although the elves loudly hailed him whenever he visited the workshops, he knew he was just in the way there. He had seen their furtive looks of relief when he headed back to his office. He couldn't really blame them; who likes being under the boss' eye all the time? 

So Santa Claus sat at a spacious desk, filled out W-2 forms, and worried. He was truly a champion worrier. He worried about the growing population. (Would he have to hire more elves? And was he obligated to deliver presents to _their_ children?) He worried about Pokémon. (Could he afford to continue buying the cards from Wizards of the Coast? Would it be in violation of the copyright if he had some elves make plush versions of Charizard and Pikachu?) He worried about global warming. (Would the North Pole disappear? If so, where would he and the elves live? On a yacht?) 

Right now he also worried about his reindeer, who had gone on strike (on _Christmas Eve,_ of all days!) Inspired by the New Years Rebellion staged by the elves the previous year ("Better Pay, Shorter Days" had been their motto,) the reindeer had refused their harnesses until venison was outlawed on the North Pole.

"We're tired of playing these reindeer games, Santa," Dasher (the spokesdeer) had declared. "Until our brethren stop ending up at McReindeer's--" (McReindeer's ("Over Three Thousand Elves Served") is a North Pole restaurant famous for it's McRudolph burger). "--you can _forget_ about us pulling your little sled!"

Santa had pointed out that there was really nothing else to eat on the North Pole (except polar bears and seals--but the polar bears usually ended up eating whoever was hunting them, and the elves complained bitterly that seals were too high in cholesterol,) but the reindeer had simply sneered and marched out. Fretful, Santa Claus wondered if the enterprising Trock had managed to find a solution like he had promised. 

And just then, Dringle and Snift apologetically drove eight smallish ponies into his office.

* * *

Whizzer, Half-Note, Lightning, and the other ponies glanced around the office (which now seemed rather crowded.) A short, plump, bearded little man in a red suit (trimmed with white) gaped at them, dwarfed by a towering stack of papers. (It reminded Comet very much of Angel's desk in Dreamquay.) Dringle and Snift saluted him smartly.

"Ho ho ho," the little man said in a deep but worried voice. "Err, what have we here?"

"Horses, sir," Snit answered.

"Horses?"

"Horses," agreed Dringle. "Ponies. Small equines. Donkeys--OWWW!!"

Parasol removed her hoof from the elf's foot with a look of contempt. By unspoken consent, the ponies had cooperated when the elves cautiously drove them out of the library and down the green and red halls. Each pony had decided that it was better than being stuck in the library all day. But if the little bipeds thought they could hurl around such vulgar insults . . . 

The man in the red suit cleared his throat. "Um, any particular reason these ponies are here? I know that little children often ask for a pony for Christmas, but they've always been one of the few presents we can't give. We can't fit them in the sleigh, you know. Ho ho ho," he added as an afterthought.

"They aren't going to be _in_ your sleight, Santa Claus, sir," Snift explained, backing away from Parasol. "They're going to be _pulling_ your sleigh."

The ponies looked surprised; so did Mr. Claus. "Oh?" he said helplessly.

"Trock found them, sir," said Dringle, gingerly rubbing his foot. "Just before he--"

"Just before he left on an important fact finding mission," Snift interposed smoothly. 

"Can they fly?" Santa asked. "The ones without wings, I mean?"

Dringle and Snift exchanged glances.

"Well--"

"That is to say--"

"We don't actually know," Dringle confessed. "Binklen said Trock told him they're definitely magic, though. Real intelligent, too."

"Well, they'll have to be to dodge jet liners and telephone poles," Santa Claus said, looking hopefully at the ponies. 

Lightning could bear it no longer. "Not intelligent like _that,_ y'big moron! INTELLIGENT! SENTIENT!" he bellowed.

Thundercloud frowned. "What's sentient mean?" 

"Well, _most_ of us are intelligent, anyway," Parasol said drily.

Skydancer remained silent, thoroughly enjoying the stunned and bewildered expressions on the faces of the humanoids. Oh for a camera, he thought.

"TALKING PONY!" Dringle and Snift shouted simultaneously.

"Why do people always say that?" wondered Heart Throb.

"Err . . . ahhh . . ." Santa said.

"Whatdoyoumeanaboutsleighs?" Whizzer chattered.

"Ahh . . . what?"

"She wants to know what you meant about us pulling a sleigh," translated Half-Note. "And _I'd_ like to know why we were kidnapped!"

"Were you?" said Santa, feeling the beginnings of a headache.

"YES!" eight ponies chorused.

"Oh dear!" Santa clasped his hands together in worry. "Well, if you leave descriptions of your parents, I'm sure we can get you back home."

"At last we've managed to find someone daffier than the Moochick," Lightning muttered under his breath.

"Trock didn't say you could _talk!"_ Dringle said incredulously. 

"Would this 'Trock' be the one who yanked us from our home?" Parasol's ears lay flat against her skull.

"Um . . . yes," Snift said, edging around until the desk was between him and the enraged pony. "We had no idea . . ."

"But since you're here . . . can you fly?" Santa asked, feeling a little desperate. Here it was Christmas Eve and even the replacement reindeer weren't working! 

"Heart Throb and Whizzer and I can," Skydancer grinned. "But we can't pull very much weight. Hollow bones, you know. Less mass."

"What will I _do?"_ groaned Santa. "All those children expecting toys--"

"Toys? Why?" Thundercloud asked.

Santa explained how he delivered toys every Christmas Eve.

"You go down the _chimneys?"_ Lightning said.

"--but this year my reindeer are on strike! I have no one to pull the sleigh!"

"Why won't the reindeers work?" Skydancer asked while the other ponies wondered what "on strike" meant. (Thundercloud was almost certain it had something to do with baseball.)

"Oh, it's the whole venison issue! They want me to close down McReindeers--"

"What's venison?" Heart Throb asked.

Snift cleared his throat. "You know. Venison. Reindeer meat."

"EWWWW!!!" Comet, Lightning, and Half-Note shrieked. Thundercloud looked shocked, Whizzer said "That'sreallydisgusting!", and Heart Throb fainted.

"You _eat_ reindeer??" Half-Note gasped while Comet and Parasol tried to revive Heart Throb. "Why??"

"What else is there to eat around here?" Dringle shrugged. 

"So the reindeer won't work because you eat them? How silly of them!" Parasol snapped. "I know I always love it when people try to eat _me!"_

"Don't give them any ideas!" Lightning whispered frantically.

Snift colored. "Look, do you think we _like_ eating reindeer? You think we _enjoy_ eating a cute, furry mammal with really big eyes and big delicate ears? No! We eat 'em because that's all there _is_ around here!"

Comet tilted her head to one side. "Well . . . why don't you import food, then?"

Santa Claus had been watching the verbal exchange uneasily, but now he spoke. "Import it? But . . . but we've always prided ourselves on our self-sufficiency!"

"Won'tdoanygoodifyoustarve!" Whizzer said with practicality.

Santa brooded. "No . . . I suppose not . . . but still . . ."

"Why not try tofu burgers?" Skydancer suggested. "I'll bet the reindeer wouldn't object to that!" (The elves might object, he thought, but probably not the reindeer.)

"And you can bring in fruits and vegetables too!" added Half-Note.

"Oranges . . . carrots . . . watermelons . . ." Santa Claus murmured dreamily. He couldn't remember the last time he'd tasted them. "You're right--it's worth it! Snift, take down a memo-- "

"But that's your secretary's job!" protested Snift.

"He got eaten by a polar bear, remember? Take down a memo. 'To Dasher and the Brotherhood of Northern Reindeer. I am pleased to inform you that I have decided to _import_ all food supplies'--no, make that 'most food supplies'--'from this day forth. Venison shall be prohibited in all forms--' . . . and now you can think of the rest of the words, I'm sure!" Santa beamed. Snift grumbled, but continued writing, stopping to chew his pencil now and then.

"Thank you, ponies, for your excellent suggestion!" beamed Santa. "Now why didn't we think of that?" (Luckily he missed Parasol's answer.) "Now, about your parents--"

"We just need to get home," explained Half-Note. "Our parents don't have anything to do with it."

"Your parents don't live at home? Oh, I'm sorry . . . was it a divorce, or . . . ?"

Skydancer chortled (more at the expression on Lightning's face than at Mr. Claus.) "We just need to get to Ponyland," he said. "We'll sort it out from there."

"Oh, I see!" said Santa. "Well, I'm sure I can manage that. Ho ho ho," he added.

* * *

Baby Half-Note leaned against her father's side and sobbed as beraggled ponies trailed towards Dream Castle, their heads lowered in despair. The search parties had scoured the woods for hours without finding a trace of the eight missing ponies. Now the moon lit up the hoof-churned snow, outlining furrows and hoofprints which would soon be covered by the massive flakes of snow lazily drifting through the night sky.

"There there, sprite," Cloudfurl comforted, although he felt like crying himself. "It'll be all right."

"I w-want Mommy to come home!"

"They'll be back, and Parasol and Skydancer too," Cloudfurl told his filly. "Skydancer will joke about being away and Parasol will complain about missing the end of the picnic, and Mommy will give you a big hug . . ." 

Baby Half-Note stared at him through her tears. _ "Really?"_

Cloudfurl wished he could make himself believe the words, but since he couldn't, he simply smiled and lied. "Really. Now let's go inside before my hooves freeze to the ground."

"Okay," agreed Baby Half-Note with relief. If Daddy said things were going to be all right . . . well, then they were!

They were halfway across the broad field when their ears first flickered at the sound of bells. Firefly and Medley swung in doubtful circles through the air, for the noise seemed to come from the sky. Moonstone, Sky Flier, and Sweet Tooth, peering through the swirling curtain of snow, thought they saw a flicker of red near the horizon, but they couldn't be sure. 

Baby Half-Note clambered onto her father's back for a better look, steadying her front hooves between his ears as she braced her hind legs between his wings. "What is it?" she wondered aloud. Cloudfurl shook his head in bewilderment, staring futilely towards the sound . . . as it died away. Once again the ponies lowered their heads in disappointment. They didn't know what the bells meant, but they had _hoped_ . . . 

And suddenly the bells were back, a chatter of metal clappers coming from behind Dream Castle . . . no, from _over_ Dream Castle! And to their astonishment and delight two crimson sleighs, each pulled by eight soaring, prancing reindeer in scarlet, jangling, polyester harnesses, slid to a stop in front of the great wooden drawbridge . . . and five earth ponies crowded out of the sleighs as Skydancer, Whizzer, and Heart Throb touched down beside the magical reindeer. 

"Half-Note!" Cloudfurl shrieked, hitting an amazingly high note for a stallion, and "Mommy!" screamed his daughter, jumping up and down.

"Skydancer!" Medley cried, kicking up her heels (and ignoring Heart Throb's glare.)

"Heart Throb!" four stallions shouted at once (and promptly got into a fight.)

Ponies surged around the missing ponies, hugging and kissing and loudly congratulating them on their safe return, until finally one or two little ponies noticed three humanoid figures hanging back and whispering to each other.

"Who are they?" Wigwam asked, pointing an orange hoof.

"Ponies, allow me to introduce . . . Santa Claus!" Skydancer shouted cheerfully. Few of the ponies had heard the name, but they cheered anyway. "And two of his elven helpers, Dringle and Snift!" Another cheer echoed off the marble facade of the castle. 

"They helped us return home after a misguided elf kidnapped us!" added Comet. This time the ponies not only bellowed approval, they also pounded the earth with their forehooves until they began tearing away frozen chunks of sod. 

"HO HO HO!" Santa practically had to scream to be heard above the enthusiastic roar of the ponies. "MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL AND TO ALL A GOOD NIGHT!" And he urged the reindeer into flight. Personally, he would've liked to loiter in Ponyland, but he was already running behind schedule, and it _was_ Christmas Eve. Snift and Dringle, using Santa's spare sled, had a hard time convincing the reindeer to take off at first, but finally managed to follow Santa's course through the crisp winter air.

All of the "Christmas Eight," as they were known, had a wonderful time dramatizing their adventure, although most ponies didn't believe Heart Throb when she began talking about vicious pony-eating reindeer and mistletoe which sapped away your strength when you stood under it. (That, she claimed, was why she had fainted.) A few days later, Santa Claus and his helpers returned with several sleighloads of goodies and presents for the ponies. (The reindeer also sent presents, being most grateful that they would no longer be served on platters with apples in their mouths.) They apologized for coming after Christmas, but none of the ponies cared--Christmas was just another human holiday anyway, as far as they were concerned. 

And now every year when the nip in the air begins to bite in earnest and the world is cold and fresh and sharp, when the ground is perfect and white with snow, then ponies begin watching the sky and listening for bells. And every year, Santa and his reindeer and elves drop by to Dream Valley for a visit--usually a little after Christmas, when everything has calmed down--and chat about the latest going-ons in Ponyland and on Earth. The Dream Vallians welcome their guests with great delight (especially since Santa never visits the "hoity-toity" ponies of Ray or Dreamquay.) And every year their joyous songs rise in triumph, celebrating peace and goodwill towards all.

Although, truth to tell, Parasol always _does_ complain about missing the end of that picnic.


End file.
